A report by the Government of West Australia this month underlines how important it is to pay attention to your safety when dating online. An estimated four and a half million Australian Dollars was defrauded by organized criminals in the last six months. Their chosen victims were vulnerable people online with whom they pretended to strike up relationships.
The figures come in part from complaints made to the WA ScamNet line, and from police reports and are reported as “relationship fraud losses”. The unwary victims were targeted by fraudsters largely resident in Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Ghana who struck up conversations and formed relationships over month or even years.
According to the WA Major Fraud Squad, some people have sent up to three hundred thousand Australian Dollars to individuals, convinced they were helping people with real life-threatening issues or circumstances. Some claimed to be escaping abusive relationships, or needing loans of money to cope with rent or flights out to meet their unknowing victims.
The Major Fraud Squad have been identifying transactions where hundreds of people have been sending large sums of money to the fraudsters repeatedly. They have now begun a careful task of contacting these people to break the news to them that they are being defrauded by criminals.
The Commissioner for Consumer Protection for Western Australia has said that most victims of these relationship frauds were finding it incredibly difficult to believe or accept that the people in whom they had invested so much time, trust and money could be con artists
It just goes to underline how careful you should be, not just with your personal safety but also with your money when meeting people online. A good rule of thumb to adopt might be to ask yourself if you would help this person if you had only just met them on the street – especially if you only know your potential partner as a name on a screen at this point.
We all want to love and be loved, but this is a timely reminder that there are people out there who aren’t so loving as others.
Stay safe.